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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.